Final Chances
by Vampire-Badger
Summary: Sequel to Second Chances. Time has been fragmented, and history is unraveling. Desmond, along with his ancestors and Lucy, are determined to set everything right, but the cost may just be unimaginably high. But between templars, family, and the horrors of high school, the end of the world might just make a welcome change.
1. Chapter 1: Prologue

Most biology classes did not offer its students the chance to interact with dinosaurs as part of the course. In fact, Thomas Barkley liked to think that his class was the first and probably only one that would ever do so. Of course, it did help that dinosaurs were no longer quite as extinct as they had been a few months before.

The story of Thomas Barkley and his dinosaurs (or so he always referred to them, and pesky legal issues of technical ownership be damned) really began the previous winter, when someone decided to put history through the spin cycle to see what came back out- and what came out, to Thomas's extreme surprise and joy, were dinosaurs. Oh, there were other things as well. Months later, people were still appearing and disappearing out of the time stream at random. Thomas didn't care much for that though. The only person he actually knew that had been time-napped was the grumpy old woman down the block that always used to let her dogs poop on his lawn. And besides. Dinosaurs.

The only time for Thomas had been actually getting close to them. It turned out you needed some serious connections to get any real dinosaur access. The news had crushed him- seeing actual living dinosaurs was something he would never have dreamed he'd get a chance at. And it turned out he still wouldn't, because he didn't have the right names to drop.

And that was when he heard about the Initiative.

No one knew who they were, how they had been funded, or what they were after. They had just appeared one day (although the word 'appeared' was slightly inaccurate. No one had yet seen any of the people behind the Initiative). They announced their grand plan- to develop a community, based out of that strange area of Illinois where more time travel had been reported than anywhere else. It would be a home to researchers of all kinds- historians, psychologists, physicists, biologists- anyone interested in uncovering information on _why_, exactly, history had suddenly become undone.

Or, in Barkley's case, interested in researching the dinosaurs that had come along for the ride. Thomas had applied as soon as he heard about the initiative and- after being officially hired- literally jumped on the first plane leaving for Chicago.

There were two distinct parts of the Initiative, formally labeled 'Research' and 'Community Outreach'. They quickly become known as A-Team and B-Team, monikers that stuck. A-Team made the important discoveries, the breakthroughs, the world shattering deductions. Or at least- as B-Team often pointed out- they were supposed to. So far, they had delivered very little, and had made basically no progress toward finding out how time travel worked. In response, A-Team typically pointed out that at least they weren't glorified high school teachers.

The local community hadn't been happy when they learned that a platoon of scientists would shortly be descending on them. So, to appease the complainers, B-Team was quickly assembled. They were based out of a local high school, right in the middle of the zone that had been wiped out by whatever had caused the time problems in the first place. There had been some kind of fight in the school that morning, a violent one. Bad enough that the students were sent home for the day, and nearly two thirds of them had already left the blast radius when whatever happened... happened, and thus were not taken out of time.

Which, Barkley had always thought, was lucky. 'We'll give back to the community by teaching all this cool new stuff we're discovering to your kids' would have gone badly if there were, in fact, no kids left.

Barkley was on B-Team. Normal people would have cared. He just wanted to work with dinosaurs, something he was able to do every weekend in a specially built compound two blocks from the school. And anyway, he liked kids. Mostly. Even if he did have a hard time figuring out. And even if they did occasionally smell like a farm.

There was one particular group that really puzzled him. Four boys and one girl- they kept to themselves, but there was something about them that just seemed off.

Desmond was (possibly) the most normal of the group. Thomas had sometimes wondered why he spent time with such weird friends, but then seventeen was a weird age. And there _was _something strange about him- it was just harder to see. But it was there, if you took the time to look. The way he never quite relaxed- occasionally seemed to lose track of where he was- sometimes didn't respond when spoken to.

Ezio, on the other hand, always seemed to have something to say. The problem was getting him to be quiet. Barkley knew that teaching high school meant getting used to nobody paying attention to him, but Ezio was an extreme case. Barkley just stuck him in the back and got on teaching as best he could.

And anyway, Ezio's incessant, cheerful chattering was still better than Connor's eternal moodiness. The third member of the group was notable mainly for the way he always seemed to be in a dark mood- emphasis on 'seemed'. His friends never seemed to make too much of Connor's Glowers, and around them, Connor did seem more relaxed. Even the constant grating between him and Ezio was mostly good natured. Probably.

The only girl in the group was Lucy. Maybe that was the only reason she seemed out of place, but Barkley thought there was more. It was there in the way the others looked at her. It was there in the way they never seemed to _quite _trust her. There was something she'd done in the past- Barkley had no idea what it was, and didn't much care- but it was keeping her at a distance from the others.

And finally, there was Altair, who Thomas thought scarcely fit in at all. He wasn't local, but Barkley had never quite figured out where he came from. Unlike Ezio (who was blatantly and proudly Italian), Altair was more reticent on his past. He kept quiet about most things, actually, and it wasn't just his English. Barkley knew it wasn't his first language, but Barkley knew he was more than capable of making himself understood. So it wasn't that he couldn't speak, it was just that he was fairly... stoic, Thomas supposed might be the best word. He knew many of the other teachers mistook that stoicism for a lack of intelligence, and tended to ignore him. Tellingly, however, Altair was the one the rest of the group looked to for advice. He wasn't exactly their leader- there were too many strong personalities in the group for that- but all of them seemed to respect him. And that was rare enough among teenagers to be notable.

For a while, Thomas was curious. About who his five strangest students were, where they had come from, what had drawn them together as friends. But the feeling faded quickly. There were more important concerns. Like dinosaurs. These days, Thomas was mostly content to let the group do as they pleased. But there were exceptions, and late in the second month of classes, on the day Thomas had scheduled his students to take a field trip up to the dinosaur pen, he couldn't help worry that they might somehow make trouble. Not that they were particularly known as troublemakers.

Meaning, of course, that they were never caught...

**-/-**

**So, a few notes about this story I want to get out of the way right away.**

**1) If you don't like confusing time travel shenanigans, you will probably not like most of this. Most of this story can probably best be described as Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey. (I will try to make that the last Doctor Who reference of this fic, but no promises)**

**2) I'm not completely sure where this story is going (I actually have _no_ idea), but one of the things I'm thinking about doing means that I'm ignoring the fact that Desmond is descended from Altair/Ezio/Connor through separate bloodlines. I sort of hinted at this in Second Chances, when Connor got put in the animus, but I just thought I'd get that out of the way because it's potentially going to come up in a major way at some point.**

**3) Apologies for this chapter being all dull and short and from the the POV of a random OC that will most likely never get a chapter again. I really don't know where Thomas Barkley came from. I was just going to write a quick paragraph about this random dino loving teacher but then this happened.**


	2. Chapter 2: Desmond

"Barkley keeps giving me the evil eye," Ezio complained.

"What did you do?" Connor asked.

"Nothing!:

"He always looks like that," Lucy pointed out.

"He always looks like that when he's looking at us," Ezio corrected. "He's too observant."

Desmond nodded. "Luckily he doesn't care about anything that's not a dinosaur." He'd often wished that certain other people were as easily distracted as Barkley- his father, for example, and for that matter his mother as well. Of course, they were assassins, and had good reason to mistrust anyone they didn't know. It didn't help that the five of them were actually time travelers, that Altair and Ezio lived in a precursor sanctum underground, and that Desmond still occasionally had trouble telling where and when he was, thanks to his time in the animus.

And then there was Lucy- she had somehow managed to become (at last count), either a quadruple agent or a tripe agent who had defected back to the assassins. The terminology was a little unclear, but either way, it was right up next to 'we might all possibly be dead' on the list of facts Desmond didn't want either of his parents to find out about.

Although these days, the whole question of whether or not the five assassins were in fact dead was a lot more up in the air. There were thousands of people displaced from all over time starting to appear. Some of them had found themselves younger than they had been before time traveling- so that element of their experience was at least something they had in common with others. No one so far had mentioned actually dying. So there were options- the time travel had taken place moments before death, they were all crazy, or they were trying to figure out how time travel worked, which was unlikely to turn out well.

Still. He wished his father would stop asking questions all the time. Luckily he's never heard about Desmond and the bleeding effect. After Italy, Desmond had been worried that Darren would make a huge issue of it, but he'd never even mentioned it. Actually, that mission had turned out well- all the confusion behind the apple time bomb meant getting back to America through a suddenly intimidating international security team had been extremely difficult. That, apparently, had been enough to convince Desmond's father that both Desmond and Darren had the skills necessary to become full assassins. And no one had ever learned just how involved Connor, Lucy, and the others had been with the bomb when it went off, so there were no dangers from that direction.

What had been less good was that, as son as he heard about the Initiative, Desmond's father and his ever present paranoia decided it was suspicious, and that the assassins needed someone on the inside. It made sense; a mysterious and secretly funded society that showed up right on Abstergo's heels was probably up to no good. That didn't mean he had to like being the one actually on the inside.

But at least he wasn't alone. Lucy and Connor had been reenrolled as well, mostly because it would be suspicious if Desmond went back and the other two didn't.

And then somewhere along the way, Ezio had decided (for reasons that made sense to absolutely to anyone but him) that he would rather be bored in school with everyone else than outside on his own. Then somehow or other Altair got roped into it as well, and when the start of the school year rolled back around, Desmond found himself starting classes with three of his ancestors plus Lucy.

The fact that it barely even registered as strange said a lot about the kind of life he had.

And compared to some of the Initiative's teachers (Thomas Barkley and his dinosaur fixation sprang immediately to mind), the assassins seemed well adjusted. Possibly even normal.

Most of the teachers seemed wholly concerned with making themselves seem important and intelligent enough to get moved up to A-Team. Those teachers were not big fans of the students and their classes were less than great. A few- like Barkley- were wholly interested in their fields, and happy just to be there. Those teachers were usually alright, if a little single minded. Then there were the few that had been employed at the school before, the ones that hadn't been there when the apple exploded. Not all of them had been great teachers before, but all of them now seemed determined to prove they could do their jobs better than the members of B-Team.

The students were as strange a mix of people as their teachers. About a third of the school's original students hadn't been there for the apple, and nearly all of them had come back for the following year's studies. Some of them had left town, but people had disappeared from everywhere. The local area had been hit the hardest, but no place or time on Earth had been unaffected, and most people didn't see the point of leaving. Added to these students were a motley mix of kids whose parents were on A- or B-Team, and those whose parents had decided a crazy school founded on the idea of solving time travel would be a good fit for their kids.

There were also a few of the time travelers themselves. They were teens, mostly native to the last fifty years or so, although Desmond knew of at least a few that were from earlier times. Supposedly, they were the ones the Initiative had deemed the most likely to learn to fit into 21st century culture. And, depending on the definition of 'fitting in', it worked.

The students were quick to adapt. They learned what to do and what to say. They made occasional slips, but for the most part, the were very nearly able to fit in.

Very nearly.

The problem, the only reason they didn't and never would fit completely in, was the way their classmates treated them. And their teachers. And the people who lived in the area. Anyone, more or less, that knew who they were and where they'd come from. They were treated differently. Not badly, just differently. It was clear no one would ever forget that William Tuckett had been born in 1967, or that Allison Day had seen world war II, or that any of the other dozen or so time travelers were not when they belonged.

"So basically we're never telling anyone we're time travelers, ever," Lucy had said once- a sentiment that Desmond thought summed their situation up exactly. The world might have acknowledged the existence of time travel, but it was a long way from accepting it. And then there was Abstergo, of course. Only a very small percentage of the modern templar order had been sent to the past, and a few new members had even arrived in the present from previous centuries. It seemed a bad idea to put information out in the world that the templars could one day find, and time traveling assassins was a secret best carefully guarded.

"You paying attention?"

Desmond blinked out of his reverie to find Lucy frowning at him. "Only... well, the rest of us have to listen to this."

"So I have to suffer through Barkley ranting about dinosaurs again too?"

Lucy didn't answer, because at that moment they entered the room where the dinosaurs were kept, and Desmond got his first look at them. For a moment, he was speechless. Then he glanced at the dinosaur, then at Lucy (who wore a similarly surprised expression), then at the dinosaur again. "Is that..."

Lucy nodded. "Yep."

"But it's-"

Ezio laughed. "It looks like a chicken."

The class had been led into a clinically white room. On the edges, sturdy but translucent materials had been used to construct cages for about half a dozen creatures. None of them would have come up to Desmond's waist, and a few of them did in fact look like large grumpy chickens.

Barkley shot Ezio a look from the other side of the room, but otherwise ignored him and continued his lecture.

What are we learning here that we could not have learned in the classroom?" Connor asked.

"We learned that the dinosaurs are real," said Altair. "I thought Barkley might have made them up, or overestimated the importance of a younger animal. They are his obsession, after all."

"Why does it matter if they're real?" Desmond asked. "He's going to keep talking about them, either way."

"It is important," said Altair. "Dinosaurs are even older than Those Who Came Before. If the apple can bring one, it can bring the other."

They were all quiet for a few minutes, thinking that through, trying to process the horror of precursors brought into the 21st century. Then Ezio said, "Well, they're not subtle."

"Neither are you," said Connor.

Ezio ignored him. "If they were here, we would have heard about it. But we've actually been pretty lucky. We've all made enemies, but none of them have showed up yet."

"You just jinxed it," Lucy sighed.

"No-"

But Ezio never got to finish telling Lucy that she was wrong, because at that moment a portal opened in midair.

Reactions were generally pretty mild. Globally, incidents of time travel had gone down to nearly zero. Locally, however, it was still disturbingly common. Portals opened on street corners, people materialized out of thin air- it had all become fairly routine.

Portals were by far the dullest option. Most of the time, no one even came through. Few people were stupid enough, now that the existence of time travel had become pretty common knowledge across history. The portals were all one way (and so far, for whatever reason, no one had seen one leading from the present to the past. Only from the past to the present). This meant that while none of the class could step through, it was possibly someone could come from the other end. Possible, but unlikely.

So, after a second's hesitation, Barkley continued his lesson, and the class went back to not paying attention. Desmond found himself idly watching the portal. He couldn't see much through it; whatever the portal was made of, it made it hard to see or hear anything going on at the other end.

Hard, but not impossible. Whoever was on the other side of this one seemed extremely angry. Desmond could hear bits and pieces of shouted rantings filtering through. He frowned. Parts of the rant sounded sort of familiar. He just couldn't quite place them.

Then suddenly, like an out of tune radio finally settling onto the right frequency, a patch of words burst through loud and clear.

"We had a dream, Benjamin! A dream you sought to destroy! And for that-"

The words faded again, but it was enough for Desmond to recognize the voice. He glanced over at Connor, who looked like he'd just been stabbed in the gut.

Everyone was staring at the portal. Desmond focused as hard as he could, now desperate to know what was going on at the other end. He tried looking at it through eagle vision, and that seemed to help a little. He could make out blurred figures moving around, but no more.

But he could fill in the missing details from memory. He'd been there- or at least he'd been there in the animus. He glanced again at Connor, and wondered if he was remembering as well- the time he had spent aboard the _Aquila_ with his father- the battle that had led them, at last, to Church- the confrontation in the hold.

"What is it?" Ezio asked quietly. He sounded more serious than Desmond had heard him in a while. "Connor looks like he just saw a ghost."

"Sort of," Desmond answered. "That's his father."

And at that moment, as he entire class and a dozen or so dinosaurs stood staring at the open portal, Haytham Kenway took a distracted step backwards- and fell into the 21st century.

**-/-**

**Well, Assassin's Creed has officially assassinated my computer (or at least the fan). So that means instead of replaying ACII, I'm typing this up on my mom's computer while mine gets (hopefully) fixed. Much less fun, but at least I'm getting this done.**


	3. Chapter 3: Ezio and Connor

"Fuck."

Ezio had never heard Connor swear before, but as the stranger fell backwards out of the portal and into the dead silence of the room, there was no mistaking his voice.

Then, pandemonium erupted. The man had clearly not seen the portal, not expected to suddenly step through time, and as he stepped he fell, hard his head hitting the ground with a solid thud. People milled around, pointed, tried to be helpful, and in the end did nothing but get in each other's way.

"Connor," Desmond said quietly. "You should get out of here before he wakes up." They didn't need a fight just then.

"What's going on?" asked Ezio. "Why is this such a big deal?" He'd never heard much about Connor's family, and didn't really get why his father showing up would be such a big deal. "Seriously Connor-"

"Just go with him if you need to know so badly," said Lucy, although Connor noticed she also looked curious.

Connor scowled, but didn't protest as Ezio followed him in slipping as quietly as possible out of the dinosaur pen. As soon as they were outside, he asked, "What's wrong with your father?"

"We never exactly got along."

"You should try being a little less specific, I think it would really help."

Connor shot him a withering glare, and said, "He was a templar, and I killed him."

"Oh." Ezio winced. Suddenly Connor's reaction made more sense. "So if he was a templar, why are you-"

"I do not want to talk about it."

"Alright, fine."

Neither of them said anything until a few minutes had gone by. Then Connor suddenly sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Why did it have to be him?"

"Terrible luck," said Ezio. Then, because Connor seemed to be ready to talk again, he asked, "What are you going to do?"

"Not sure yet."

"Well maybe one of us could-"

"No." Connor's answer was firm. "I can deal with him."

"Are you sure?"

Connor nodded. "Just stay away from him. Alright?"

Ezio nodded. "Fine."

-/-

They didn't even discuss going back to school, and soon Ezio realized they were only a block or two away from the place the assassins claimed as their home. Connor lived there, along with Desmond and Lucy. Ezio and Altair, on the other hand, were not exactly welcome. It made sense, of course. Random teenagers running through assassin headquarters was exactly the sort of thing Ezio had tried to avoid when he'd run the Brotherhood.

"I should get back," he said as they drew nearer. "Before anyone sees-"

"Connor, is that you?"

Ezio mentally cursed himself for not paying enough attention. A woman stood before them. She was probably somewhere between forty and forty five, short, and had a cheerful face. "Who's this?"

"This is Ezio," said Connor, after a moment's hesitation. At Ezio's inquiring look, he added, "And this is Mrs. Miles- Desmond's mom."

"Friend of yours?" the woman asked.

Connor made a noncommittal noise, and Ezio said, "Best friends."

She laughed, probably at the expression on Connor's face, and said, "Ezio. That's an unusual name."

"It's a family name," said Ezio, which was his normal answer whenever anyone asked.

"Really?" For some reason, she seemed to find this interesting.

Ezio didn't like the piercing way she studied him. "I should-"

"What's this?" her hands shot forward and caught one of his.

"It's..." his stomach lurched. He'd worn his hidden blades nearly every day for most of his life, and when he'd suddenly found himself in an unknown century, it had been a relief to find his blades had come as well. It was a little mystifying- he hadn't been wearing them when he left. But then, he also hadn't been wearing the modern clothes he woke up in. Time travel was strange.

He still wore the blades every day. So far, no one else had noticed, but here was this woman, eying him with suspicion. "They were my father's," he blurted. Technically true. "And I mean, you never know when you're just going to be walking down the street, and suddenly you're time traveling and you're in some other century or something. It's just self defense."

"Did your father ever tell you what these mean?"

"No." Also true. "I found them after he he died..." suddenly Ezio found it hard to talk. A lump had formed in his throat. It had been years since he'd allowed himself to think of that day. It was over. Done with.

But it would never be behind him. "I need to go."

"Ezio-" for a second, Ezio thought Connor sounded almost concerned, but he didn't stop to find out. He turned and hurried away, feeling more out of place and alone than he had in a very long time.

-/-

Connor watched Ezio go until he was out of sight. He knew Ezio wore the hidden blade (as did the rest of the assassins, for that matter), but to have them discovered was undeniably sloppy.

"And why are you home so early?"

Even under normal circumstances, Connor would have been reluctant to tell any of the other assassins of his father's appearance. He knew- as he had always known- that his father was his responsibility, and his alone. It was not a responsibility, but one he had shouldered for years.

And besides. It was probably a good idea to come up with some excuse completely unrelated to assassins and templars, if only to distract attention from Ezio.

Of course, Connor drew a blank. "I-"

She did not seem interested in waiting for an answer. "Did you know Ezio is a common name among Italian assassins?"

"No."

"It's all because of this one assassin from the Renaissance- Ezio Auditore da Firenze." She said the name with apparent enjoyment.

"I have heard of him," said Connor, cautiously.

"He was kind of a big deal when he was alive," she continued. At the time, there were few assassins in Italy. Perhaps a handful. They operated largely in the shadows, and they were gradually being killed or forced away by the templars. They were just trying to hang on and stay alive.

"But no one told Ezio. He was... not exactly a typical assassin. Good at what he did, but by God, he drew attention. But he rebuilt the Italian branch of the Brotherhood from the ground up. He was the first assassin to try investing in local businesses. It's the model we still use today for most of our income, although we have to be a bit more careful..." she trailed off, then said, "He was one of the greats, and the Italians still have this sort of nationalistic pride in him. The name pops up pretty often in their ranks. If your friend really did get those blades from his father... and I mean he does have the name. It's possible his family were assassins."

"I do not-"

"Talk to him, won't you?" she patted Connor distractedly on the shoulder (he tensed involuntarily). "See what you can find out."

**-/-**

**And... not really much to say on this chapter. I usually try to babble out something at the end, but... nope. Not this time.**


	4. Chapter 4: Haytham

Haytham woke to find himself on a bed in a strange white room, his arm hooked up to a bag of some sort of fluid. Apart from the bed he was lying on, the only other furniture in the room were a tiny table and a chair.

In the chair was a boy. He looked about sixteen or seventeen years old, with short dark hair and eyes that studied him unblinkingly.

When it was clear that the boy wasn't going to speak first, Haytham asked, "Where am I?" Not the most original question, but one he would like an answer to. Besides, he was nearly naked (the thin blue gown he was wearing hardly counted), and his weapons were gone. His options, for the moment, were limited.

"Hospital," said the boy. "But the question you should be asking is when are you."

Haytham winced. "So it's time travel." There had been a few cases of people suddenly appearing or vanishing in the 1700s, but Haytham had only half believed them. Of course, now that it had happened to him...

"Yes."

Haytham could feel his entire world vanishing around him. Everything he'd worked for, everything he'd ever done, it all would have passed into irrelevancy long ago.

Somewhere, deep in the back of his mind, he wondered what had become of Connor. He brushed the thought away.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"Desmond Miles."

"Why are you here?"

For a long moment, Desmond didn't answer. Then he said, "I'm not exactly sure."

To his irritation, Haytham realized no further explanation was coming. "What happens now?" he asked.

"What do you want to happen?"

Haytham scowled at the half answer. He had no idea what to do, and the thought scared him. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been this helpless. He wasn't even sure which century he was in. He supposed the logical thing to do would be to search out the templars in whatever form they now existed in. The Order had been around for centuries before his time. Surely they had continued long after.

The thought made him feel unbelievably tired.

When he continued to say nothing, Desmond sighed and stood up. "Never mind," he said. "I don't know what I was expecting."

-/-

He had more visitors, later. Stern men in dark suits who told him the date and the year. They told him that time travel had become common- from the way they talked about it, Haytham thought it must have been much more common in the 21st century than the 18th. Or maybe he had simply been more wrapped up in his hunt for Church than he had believed.

They asked him when he'd come from- he saw no reason to lie. They asked where he had come from, what his name was, what he did for a living. He answered the first two honestly, and skated around the third. "Why all the questions?" he asked.

"We need to decide what to do with you," said the taller of the two men. He had introduced himself as Adam Powell. "Mostly we've been putting you lot into special communities until you can adjust to the time change. There are some people that are psychologically suited to going straight into normal society. Very young children can adapt quickly as well. Then we give people the option of staying with relatives, if we can track any willing descendants."

"I wouldn't bother looking for mine," said Haytham. He tried to ignore the way the men were talking- he didn't like being discussed as if he were an animal, something to be penned in until it were trained to behave.

"No family?" The shorter man- Theo Alesci- spoke up.

"A son," said Haytham. "But I doubt he ever had children." That would require Connor figuring out how reproduction worked. Or at least how to talk to women.

"Never know, never know." Powell's voice had the cheery quality of someone having a conversation he went through often. "Your last name's Kenway- plenty of those around. You could get lucky." He stopped to examine something on a flat table he held in one hand. After poking at it for a while, he added, "Even one locally. Name of Connor."

"What?" His tone had been too surprised. He could tell right away. Both Powell and Alesci stared. With effort, Haytham calmed himself. It was a coincidence. It had to be.

Still. He (apparently) lived in a world where time travel was not only possible, but common. One way or another, he had to know.

-/-

He stole a set of clothes and walked out of the hospital before anyone could decide what to do with him. He felt surprisingly light as he did so- the stolen clothing was less constricting than anything he would normally wear, and that was part of the feeling. But he had also been unable to find any of his missing weapons, and for the first time in years, he found himself unarmed in public.

He tried to shake the feeling off. He'd taken the address of this century's Connor off Powell. Before he did anything else, he needed to know.

The place wasn't easy for Haytham to find, given that he knew less than nothing of his current surroundings, but he managed it in the end. He stopped a couple of blocks away, as the actual address was on a street with little cover, far from ideal if he wished to remain unobserved.

He spent a while studying the area, trying to decide what his next move ought to be. Before he could reach a conclusion, however, two boys walked past him on their way up the street, and Haytham recognized them. The taller of the two was the same boy that had come to visit him in the hospital- Desmond Miles.

The other was Connor, but young, as young as the first time Haytham had ever seen him, on a rooftop in Boston, surrounded by snow, just another nameless face. A child. A convenient someone to take the blame.

"You went to see my dad." Connor's voice interrupted Haytham's remembrance. "Why."

"I wanted to see him." When Haytham had asked Desmond that same question, he'd evaded the question. When Connor asked, he didn't even hesitate. "In person, not in the animus."

"It was not something you should have done." It was hard to read any emotion in Connor's voice, but Haytham thought he might have been angry.

"It's the stupid bleeding effect." Desmond, on the other hand, sounded tired. "I've never met him, so my brain just throws out your feelings toward him. I needed to see him for myself. I'd do the same thing if someone Ezio or Altair knew suddenly showed up."

Connor did not reply right away, and before long the two of them had passed out of the range of Haytham's hearing. Neither of them had noticed him.

He stood there, in his stolen clothing, and realized he had never felt so out of place in his life. Half of that conversation had made absolutely no sense to him.

But at least he knew for sure now. The Connor that had just passed away down the street was the same one he had known over two hundred years before.

**-/-**

**For some reason, this chapter and the last just gave me a lot of trouble (which is why they're both fairly short). Yuck... I don't know. Hopefully they'll start getting better soon.**


	5. Chapter 5: Altair

The next morning, Altair found Ezio at the top of the local water tower.

"So this is where you ran off to yesterday."

Ezio sighed and said nothing, which worried Altair. He had never known his descendant to be so quiet. Or to disappear for this long. No one had heard from Ezio after he left with Connor the day before. Something was definitely wrong.

Predictably, it was Ezio that broke the silence first. Altair could sit quietly for hours when he needed to, while Ezio would probably talk to himself when there was no one else around to hear. His words surprised Altair, however. "Did you ever know your father?"

"Not well."

"Neither did I," said Ezio. "I thought I did. But I didn't even know he was an assassin until after he died. I keep wondering. What else would I have learned about him If hadn't died? And what would he have said about the way I spent my life?"

"I think," said Altair, after giving the question due consideration, "He would have been proud of you."

"Proud?"

"Yes," said Altair. "Our... lifestyle is not one that lends itself well to happiness. I have spent my entire life surrounded by assassins. I have seen far too many give in to despair, and become a shell of their former self. I have seen children brought into the order, happy and normal, and by the time they are grown, they are quiet and hollow. They have seen and done too much."

"I'm not exactly the same person I used to be," said Ezio.

"How could you be?" asked Altair. "Had you not changed, you would not be alive today. But you have not let it destroy you, and that is something very difficult to achieve."

For a few minutes, Ezio still said nothing. Then he let out a deep, long sigh, and offered up half a smile. "Thanks."

"You alright know?"

"You sound like my mother."

Altair sighed as well, although his was more annoyed. "Well then there is something else we need to talk about."

"What'd I do this time?"

Connor told me Desmond's mother caught you with your hidden blades," said Altair. "And now she's curious." He quickly related the rest of the story as Connor had told it to him.

At the end of the narration, Ezio screwed up his face, as though trying to wrap his mind around it. "So she thinks I'm named after myself."

"If you get a swelled head off this..."

"It's just weird," Ezio said, then shrugged. "Alright. I can stay out of her space for a while." He suddenly frowned. "Weather's turning bad."

Altair followed the direction of Ezio's gaze. From their high vantage point, he could clearly see a low, dark, thunder cloud gathering on the horizon. He nodded. "We should get back."

-/-

They did not make it farther than a couple of blocks before the rain caught up with them. When Ezio pointed out they were just outside the local library and suggested they wait out the storm there, Altair did not argue.

They were completely soaked by the time they got in. At the front desk, the sole librarian on duty glared at their wet footprints. Ezio waved and smiled, and Altair pulled him quickly away.

"I like this library," said Ezio when they had left the librarian behind. "It has all the things libraries are supposed to have. You know. Like books."

"Are you ever going to let that go?"

"Probably not."

Altair had spent what he had assumed would be the final months of his life sealing away his apple within a library beneath Masyaf. Ezio had spent an equal amount of time opening it back up again. He tended to feel his effort gave him the right to make comments. Altair disagreed, but as Ezio enjoyed the sound of his own voice, his disagreement had so far been ineffectual.

In a small room near the back that housed the library's biography collection, Altair and Ezio found Lucy doing math homework.

"You're here early," said Ezio, dropping into a chair across from her. "It's barely nine."

"Connor and Desmond are arguing about Connor's father." Lucy looked more than a little peeved. "He walked out of the hospital, apparently, and no one's seen him since." She shook her head. "Anyway, I told them they know where to find me if they need me. When I left they were just glaring at each other."

"Sounds like a party," said Ezio.

"Clearly you've been going to the wrong kind of party," said Lucy. "Anyway. I have to get this done."

"You spend too much time doing homework as it is," said Ezio.

"And you barely spend any," said Lucy.

"I have a policy about homework," said Ezio, and Altair had to stifle a groan. He'd heard this one before.

Lucy, apparently, had not. "What's that?"

"Everything is due, nothing is submitted."

"Oh God." She rolled her eyes. "Really, that's the best you could come up with?"

"I think it's very clever," said Ezio.

"That's because you are not," said Altair, sitting down next to him. Ezio pouted. They spent the rest of the morning there, not doing much of anything at all. Then, around 1:00, Ezio jabbed Altair in the side and nodded over Lucy's shoulder to a woman that had just come into the room. "That's her," he said quietly. "Desmond's mom."

Altair gave her a moment's glance out of the corner of his eye, and Lucy shifted slightly to be able to see as well. "She looks upset," said Altair.

Lucy nodded, seeming concerned. "I've never seen her so-"

"She's coming over," Ezio interrupted, and the three of them fell silent.

She flashed a tired smile at Ezio. "It's you again," she said. "Fancy that."

"It's a small world after all," said Ezio.

Altair glared at Lucy and mouthed 'why did you show him that song?'. She shrugged apologetically.

"Lucy." Mrs. Miles turned to look at her. "If you're not too busy, can you start heading home soon?"

"What's the matter?" Lucy asked.

"We've had some visitors."

Her tone was very, very carefully calm. It had clearly taken more than a little effort to keep her voice steady.

Altair, Ezio, and Lucy exchanged a look. There could be no doubt that these 'visitors' had been templars.

"But they've... left now?" Lucy asked.

"Yes." But she did not seem happy. "With Connor."

"Connor?" Lucy sounded surprised. "Why would they take Connor and not-"

"Because," said Ezio. "They've never seen Desmond in the animus. Only Connor. And this has to be the animus, because why else would they take him instead of killing him?"

Altair shot Ezio a look of pure venom. It had been four hours, less than half a day, since Ezio had promised to keep a low profile.

"We need to get him out of there," said Lucy, face suddenly set into an expression of grim determination. "The animus... it can really screw you up."

"Like Desmond," said Ezio, but Lucy shook her head.

"Worse. Desmond's one of the lucky ones. He was only in it for a few months, and he's managed to get the Bleeding Effect under control."

"When has Desmond ever been in an animus?"

They all turned to look at Desmond's mother- Altair had momentarily forgotten she was there, and by the guilty expression on Lucy's and Ezio's faces, they had as well. Altair opened his mouth, but could think of nothing to say- clearly, quite enough had already been said.

Ezio seemed to disagree, as he actually answered. "In the future. He's a time traveler. We're all time travelers Can we go rescue Connor now?"

-/-

**So, funny story: while my computer was all sad and broken and away getting fixed, I attempted to type up some recent chapters on my mother's computer, which resulted in a blue screen of death, which is the point I decided to just wait to put anything new up until I got my computer back. But on the plus side I'm submitting three chapters all in a row today. Yay illusion of productivity!**


	6. Chapter 6: Haytham

Haytham spent most of that dreary, rainy day walking the streets, visiting the occasional store, trying to fit all that he saw into his rapidly growing idea of what it meant to be part of the twenty first century. He was almost disappointed by how easy it was. The places had changed, the technology was very different, but people were still people, and people never changed.

It did leave him with a problem though. Nothing he had seen so far gave him the least idea of where he fit into this new time. Disheartened, but not ready to give up, he planted himself in a small restaurant, ordered a lunch, and slowly ate his way through it.

He had nearly finished when a small Asian woman slid into the seat across from him. He stared at her, completely taken by surprise by her arrival. She stared right back, unabashed, chin resting on one cupped hand.

"Excuse me-"

"Don't mind me, please," the woman said, and went back to her silent contemplation.

"I really don't have time for this."

The woman raised an eyebrow. "Why?" she asked. "Where else do you need to be, Kenway?"

"You know who I am." He supposed he should have been surprised, but he had been through enough surprises already in the last few days, and couldn't summon the energy. Besides, she had clearly come into the restaurant with the intention of seeing him. Why would she not know his name?

"We've been observing you since you arrived," she said.

"Which I'm sure is perfectly normal," he said dryly. "Who is 'we'?"

"Have you heard of a group called the Initiative since coming here?"

"They- or I presume I could say 'you'- came into the area just after the time travel began." He'd heard mentions of it everywhere they went. The Initiative had changed everything about the area by their presence "You want to understand why all this is happening."

"More or less," the woman agreed. "And we need people like you to help us do that. People who aren't the fazed in the slightest when they wake up in another century. People who prefer to face the world on their own terms, rather than sit and wait for others to decide their fate for them."

"What exactly are you offering?" And what, he added silently, aren't you telling me?

"Come work for us," said the woman. "I don't know how helpful you'll be, to be honest-" Haytham decided not to be offended, at least until he heard more- "but my superiors seem to want you on our team. In return, if we succeed in mastering time travel, we'll return you to your own time. Or any other time you prefer."

For a moment, Haytham very nearly said no. His life in the 1700s was falling apart around him. He had no family, few friends, and lately he had found himself with almost no one he still thought himself capable of trusting. Everything was changing, and if he was honest with himself, Haytham had felt more alive hunting down Church with Connor than he had for years.

If he was brutally honest with himself, he had not felt that alive since the last time he had seen Ziio.

Then her words caught up with him. They could send him back to any time. Not just his own. He could go back- change things- make them better. Unbidden, the memory of a young Connor on the snowy rooftops of Boston flashed again through his mind. But he shook the thought away. Of course, there were mo important things he could choose to change.

Still, there was another question he had to ask.

"Can I borrow a pen?"

"Of course."

She handed him a sleek black pen with the words 'Initiative' written on the side in swooping cursive. Haytham pulled a paper napkin out of the dispenser on the table and drew two symbols onto it. That of the templars and that of the assassins. "Have you seen either of these symbols before?"

She studied them, then shook her head. "No," she said. "Should I have?"

"It doesn't matter." The last thing he wanted was to become a pawn of the organization he had once lead, or, worse, of the assassins.

"Are you going to accept my offer?" the woman asked.

Haytham hesitated a fraction of a second, then nodded. "Yes," he said. "I believe I am."

The woman smiled for the first time, flashing a set of perfectly white teeth at him. "Excellent," she said. "My name is Alana Simmons, by the way."

"Haytham Kenway. But then, you knew that already." She offered her hand, and he took it. "Simmons," he said, once they had separated. "It's not your real name, is it?" He'd worked with enough people who used false names to recognize the signs, the slight hesitation as she'd introduced herself, the strange way the name rolled off her tongue.

"It's not," she said, and pulled out a card. On it was an address. "Report here at 7:00 tomorrow morning."

"Alright."

"See you around, then." Simmons stood and walked out, her long ponytail swinging behind her with every step.

-/-

The address was a single story brick beast of a building, squatting in the middle of a parking lot it shared with a long abandoned strip mall. Weeds grew out of cracks in the ground, and childish graffiti covered the walls of the abandoned mall.

Haytham was just starting to wonder if he was in the right place when he caught sight of a familiar face through one of the building's windows- if Simmons was there, he must be in the right place.

Inside, the building was an attractive mix of wood paneling and old books. A few people in casual dress sat at tables, surrounded by the tomes, and one or two walked around with armfuls or cart fulls of books.

"So you came." Simmons looked more tired this morning than she had the day before, but still smiled. "Here, can you take these?"

She was juggling six or seven heavy books in her arms. Haytham took them from her and glanced down at them- every one seemed to be a journal, personal account, or private record of some kind. Only two were printed.

"We need to bring these over there," said Simmons. "Connolly- he's our head researcher- he goes through these things like there's no tomorrow."

"Is there?"

"Is there what?"

"A tomorrow." Since waking in the future, the answers to questions like that seemed much less certain.

"Probably," said Simmons. "Today, at least. And for a while after that. But a few years down the road, it looks like we're going to run out."

"What happens then?"

"I have no idea. But we've had incidents of time travel going as far back as the dinosaurs. But from the future, no one's come any farther than December 21, 2012. I suppose that must be our last tomorrow."

They reached the far side of the room before Haytham had any time to digest that. At their destination, an incredibly old man, white haired and stoop shouldered, dozed at a table covered in books and manuscripts. Simmons gestured at Haytham to leave his load on the table as she gathered up the ones already there.

"That's Connolly," she said, but quietly, so as not to wake him. "He's studied and taught history for most of his life. We hired him because when all this time travel started, the history books started to change. Just a bit at first, but as more and more people are displaced from their own times, the books change more and more. Eventually, history will probably change enough to have a noticeable change on the present. But for now, it's important to just figure out what these changes are. That's why we have Connolly He's come up with a few crackpot theories- he seems to think there's some sort of secret society coordinating a lot of the changes, for example- but he's also the one that noticed only primary sources changed. Other books and documents that draw on the originals remain unaffected. That's been extremely helpful to us."

They finished clearing the contents of Connolly's table onto a nearby cart, and Simmons led Haytham into a nearby room that turned out to be her office. "We need to decide how best to employ you," she said. "What exactly did you do before coming here?"

"I traveled."

"I said exactly." Haytham didn't answer, and she sighed. "Alright then, I'll guess. Military?"

"Not exactly."

"Tourism"

"Nothing so pedestrian"

"Adventuring."

Haytham had to admit that a lot of what he had seen and done in his life would probably fall under the category of 'adventurous'. Certainly dangerous and unpredictable, which were two words that often described adventures.

"Can you hold your own in a fight?" Simmons went on.

He smiled at the deliberate understatement as he answered, "I like to think so."

"Then I think you may be exactly what we've been looking for," said Simmons. "Have you ever been to Italy?"

**-/-**

**So this is a chapter. Yep. Nothing really to say about it except that I'm kind of excited to find out if the Initiative turns out to be evil. Part of me is like 'well their name is "The Initiative". Of course they're evil', but the rest of me is like, 'but they haven't really done anything evil yet' so that's all confusing. It'll probably be like the apple time machine bomb from Second Chances and I'll find out about it two paragraphs before the characters.**


	7. Chapter 7: Desmond

Desmond, Lucy, Altair, and Ezio had all been herded into Desmond's father's office by his mother, and left there to wait while she tracked down her husband. It took a while. After the templar attack, it was clear the assassins were no longer safe where they were, and William Miles was overseeing the evacuation.

Desmond was nursing a black eye, but otherwise he felt fine. The team that had been sent in to retrieve Connor had been quick, clean, and efficient, coming up on their quarry while his back was turned and knocking him out before he could fight back. Desmond had been out of the room, only coming back in time to receive the black eye as a parting gift from the last templar to leave.

He'd related the story quickly when the other three came in, then asked, "What are you two even doing here?"

"Ezio." Altair's answer was very nearly a growl.

"He told your mom," said Lucy.

Desmond winced. "How much?"

"Enough," said Altair.

"Why would you do that?" he asked Ezio.

"If anyone's going after Connor, it should be us," said Ezio, unapologeticaly.

"He's right," Lucy said grudgingly, and not even Altair argued, though he still looked angry.

The door opened then, and both of Desmond's parents came in.

"Dad-" Desmond started, but his father hushed him.

"Not now, Desmond." He pointed at Ezio. "You. Explain."

Ezio launched into a long winded and rambling account of his own life, both in his original time and the current one. When he had finished, Altair added his own history, much more succinctly. Lucy went next, skipping awkwardly over her time with Abstergo. It was probably a good move, Desmond thought- this exact moment was not the best to mention she had once been a templar. It would have to come out at some point, when everyone was calmer. He could see by the look in her eyes that his mother had not missed the omission.

"And you?" his father turned on Desmond when Lucy had finished her story.

"Well I'm also from the future..."

"And?"

"When I was sixteen, I ran away from the Farm and ended up living in New York, tending bar, until I was 25. That's when the templars found me. They kidnapped me and I spent the next few months stuck in an animus."

"You've been in an animus." His father's tone was flat.

"Yea."

"Why? What's so special about you?"

"Wow, thanks," said Desmond.

His father closed his eyes and breathed deeply in an obvious attempt to stay calm. "Fine," he said. "What makes your ancestors so special."

"Wow, thanks," Ezio interrupted. Desmond could have sworn he heard a little snort of laughter from Altair, but when he glanced over at the assassin, his face was completely composed.

"Desmond..."

"I'm descended from Altair Ibn-La'Ahad-" he pointed at Altair, "And Ezio Auditore-"

"Da Firenze," Ezio interrupted.

"I was getting there," said Desmond.

"Just making sure."

"It's not my fault your name's ten miles long." He turned back to his father. "And Connor's an ancestor too."

"He has a boring name," said Ezio, interrupting again.

"Ratonhnhake:ton is boring?" Lucy asked.

"Can't you ever be serious?" Altair asked.

"...maybe."

Desmond glanced at his parents, and felt a stab of something like guilt pass through him. This wouldn't be the easiest of stories to believe at the best of times, but between Connor's kidnapping and Ezio's... Ezio-ness, it would have been even harder.

"Desmond," his father said at last. "Is this all true?"

"Yes."

He took a deep breath. "I think I'm going to need a minute."

-/-

Two days later, a team of twelve assassins- Desmond, both his parents, his two ancestors, Lucy, and six others selected for their experiences or skill sets- were headed to Abstergo headquarters in Italy. On the plane ride there, Desmond found himself wedged into a row of seats between his father and Altair.

For the first half of the flight- to Desmond's relief- nobody spoke. Then his father said, without looking at either of them: "So. You've been inside his memories."

"Yep."

"How did that-"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Well clearly," said his father. "Since you didn't even tell us about this until you absolutely had to, when Connor's life was in danger."

"I still didn't want to tell you," said Desmond, his temper starting to flare up. "It's Ezio that can't keep his mouth shut."

The conversation died there, leaving Desmond to his own thoughts and a nagging, unwanted, sense of guilt. He didn't need this. Not on top of everything else he had to worry about. But every time his father opened his mouth, Desmond couldn't help but think that the William Miles he had spent months with in New York, the one that had been at his side while he was in a coma, the one he had risked everything to save from Vidic- he was gone. Abandoned to a future that seemed more unlikely with every change made to the timeline.

It wasn't fair to compare the two versions of his father. But then, neither was life.

**-/-**

**And this is a chapter that wound up being way shorter than I expected it to be. Apologies.**


	8. Chapter 8: Connor

"Good. You're awake."

For the second time in his life, Connor woke up on a table with Vidic standing over him. He tried to lash out, but found that his arms and legs had been securely bound to the table with thick straps. Vidic's smug smile seemed to grow larger. "We're not losing you again," he said. "There's too much locked inside your DNA."

Connor ignored him in favor of continuing to test the strength of his restraints. Unfortunately, they seemed to be more than up to the task of holding him. As Vidic continued to talk, Connor let his eyes wander over his surroundings, looking for something to help him out of there. He saw nothing. Besides the bindings over his arms and legs, thick straps kept him from moving his head or sitting up. They also limited his range of vision to the area just overhead- a few feet of ceiling and Vidic's unattractive face.

And, as he realized just how stuck he really was, something like panic started to set in. It was more than just being trapped on the table, although that was not helping either The last time he had been on this table, months before, he had known nothing about it, apart from what he had learned from five minutes inside the animus. Now, after learning what it was, and seeing what it had done to Desmond, Connor knew enough to be really and truly afraid.

He knew for a fact that he did not want to be there. And he also knew that he had no choice in the matter.

-/-

Days passed.

For Connor, his time spent in the waking world was made up of fragments, sounds and images that meant little. They (and at times, it was hard to remember who exactly 'they' were) pulled him out only when the animus threatened to overheat, and normally it was only a few moments before Connor fell into a restless and much needed sleep.

He did not dream during these times, and for that he was glad, because his time spent awake was rapidly turning into a nightmare. He had always been driven. He had goals. A purpose. And he pursued them relentlessly. He was a hunter, and his prey knew no mercy.

But now, he was little more than a puppet. The animus seemed design to undermine all of who he was. It got under his skin, inside his brain, supplanting his own sense of self with that of his ancestor. He had tried to fight it. Of course he had. But little by little, his own mind betrayed him. Sometimes he even forgot why it was so important to keep fighting. It was the most important battle of his life, his own mind and sanity riding on the outcome.

And yet more often than not, it was his own mind he fought. And he was losing.

-/-

It was hard to pinpoint exactly when the animus sessions became a relief instead of a burden, but they did. There was no doubt when he was in there. No question of who he was (although there was the occasional, nagging thought that the answer was wrong). No, it was when they pulled him out of the animus that everything began to feel strange again. He was two people in one head. It was confusing and disorienting. Inside the animus, nothing really felt right- but nothing felt wrong, either.

Then one day, it all ended. Inside the animus, as Altair, he battled Al Muliam and recovered the Apple of Eden. And then, as a shimmering golden globe spun overhead, the world dissolved around him. The room spun (it had never felt this bad before- something had gone wrong). He would have thrown up, if there had been anything in his stomach. When had he last eaten (Before riding to Masyaf? But no, that was wrong. Why?)?

Somewhere, two men spoke, deciding his fate, but his mind buzzed with the friction of two minds pressing up against one another, and he could not bring himself to care. One of the voices was familiar- his mind struggled for the name and, after several long moments remembered. It was Vidic's- the other was too quiet to identify, but it did not sound like the nameless assistant that had been by the doctor's side every time he woke.

Then, suddenly, Vidic's voice cut off mid-sentence, and there was a brief but loud commotion. Noise, shouts, a cry of pain. He forced his eyes open, and saw a man (some part of his brain was screaming that he ought to know him, and know him well, but somehow the connection would not come). The strange, familiar man stood over him, a blank, unreadable expression on his face.

Then his exhausted mind gave up- his eyes slid closed, and for several hours, he knew no more.

**-/-**

**So, yea, this chapter is really short. Whoops. I have a hard time writing Connor being crazy, I admit it. Also I've acquired a soul sucking part time job, which has made writing difficult. As has this other AC plot bunny that's wormed it's way into my head and I just really want to write it but nope I'm gonna finish this one first.**


	9. Chapter 9: Desmond

"I don't like this plan," Lucy said, for what must have been the fifteenth time.

"I know." Ezio was unusually serious, Desmond noticed. "I don't like it much either."

"You guys have a better plan?" He knew their complaining was as much to give them something to do as anything else, but it was still annoying. He would have been more pissed off about it if he hadn't been doing more than his own share of complaining over the past week. They'd been in Italy a little longer than that, but the plan had first come together seven days ago.

They'd met up with the assassin cells operating out of Italy within hours of stepping off the plane. And that was probably the most productive thing they had done since arriving. To Desmond's intense frustration, the others had all agreed that their best hope of getting Connor back was to be careful, to take their time, to plan.

They didn't get it. They couldn't. They didn't understand that rescue from the animus was worth any risk. From what Lucy had told him, each successive model of the animus did less damage to the user's mind. In 2012, it had taken months before Desmond had really started to lose control. In 2004, he didn't want to guess what it would do to Connor, or how quickly.

And in the end, after all the delays, the long debated plans, the best they could come up with was the mostly hopeful thinking and crossed fingers They had at least followed Desmond's advice in one aspect, though. Altair would be the one to actually go in after Connor. Desmond knew from personal experience that the best way to beat the Bleeding Effect was to prove to your mind that what it was telling you was false. To see your ancestor in front of you, to realize that you and he couldn't be the same person at the same time, was the best way to do that. And, assuming Abstergo had put Connor through Altair's memories (and there was no reason to doubt that), there was only one choice for who would go in after him.

But that didn't mean the rest of the assassins would be idle. Abstergo would have Connor carefully guarded, there was no question about that. And while, under normal circumstances, it might be worth trying to fight their way in, it was doubtful Connor would be in any condition to fight his way back out. So the rest of the group were scattered around the Abstergo building, ready to cover their scape no matter which way they were forced to take. In other words, it was little more than a waiting game.

"We may need to change the plan."

Altair's voice crackled through Desmond's ear piece. "Why?" he demanded, more harshly than he'd meant to.

"I found the room he was held in," said Altair. "One dead body, one man that won't be going anywhere under his own power anytime soon, and obvious signs of a struggle. No Connor."

"Whose body?" that voice belonged to Desmond's father. "Does he have a name badge or anything?"

"Not the dead one," said Altair. "The other one is Warren Vidic."

"The other one must be his assistant."

"They're dropping like flies," Ezio muttered. "Delaney last year, now this guy..."

"So someone got to Connor first," said Desmond.

"If we don't even know who took him, our chances of tracking him down are practically nonexistent," his father said. He sounded frustrated.

"Wait," said Desmond. "I remember, when I was in there, the room was full of security cameras."

"They're still here," said Altair. "Or already here."

"There's a security room on the second floor," Lucy blurted. "The recordings will be there."

"How did you know-"

Desmond interrupted his father before he could finish the question. "Let's go check them out."

-/-

Five minutes and two downed guards later, Desmond, Ezio, and Lucy met up with Altair in the security room. "How far back are we looking?" Lucy asked, already bent over the nearest computer.

"The dead body looked fresh," said Altair. "A couple of hours maybe."

Ezio swore. "So we just missed him."

"We can still catch up," said Desmond. "Whoever has Connor now can't have taken him far. There just hasn't been much time. And Connor won't be traveling well."

Lucy, who had begun scanning through the recent tapes while the others talked, suddenly sucked in her breath. "I... think this is bad news," she said, an edge of confusion in her voice.

"Did you find him?" Ezio asked. "Whoever took Connor?"

"Yea," said Lucy. "That's the problem."

"Who is it?" Desmond demanded, and Lucy flinched slightly. He took a deep breath, forced down his impatience. "Sorry," he said. "It's just-"

"I know." For a moment, she seemed to shrink, as though some heavy burden had become too much. Then she sighed and shook it off, strong as ever. "It's his father," she said. "Look."

Desmond bent over the monitor next to her, the others crowding in beside them. He swore- he'd hoped Lucy might have been wrong. She'd only seen Haytham Kenway once, after all. But there he was, on screen, dressed in a set of modern clothing that seemed almost anachronistic to his eyes. "What does he want with Connor?"

"He is his father," Altair pointed out.

"But there's not a lot of love lost there," said Desmond.

"Family can mean strange things to some people," said Altair.

"Why does he seem surprised?" Ezio asked. "Look, when he sees Connor." He jabbed at the screen. "He didn't expect to see him here. And why would he break into a templar base? He's a templar too."

"Good questions," said Desmond. "But we're not going to get any answers here. We need to find them."

-/-

They split up at once- Desmond and Ezio going in one direction, Altair and Lucy in another. With little idea of where to go, it seemed as good a plan as any other.

One block out, they ran into an unexpected obstacle. "Going off on your own?" Desmond's father asked, falling into step beside the pair.

Desmond groaned. "Dad-"

"Hear me out."

"We don't have time for this right now!"

"Then stop interrupting me and we'll finish faster." Desmond almost snapped back a reply, but ground his teeth and kept it to himself.

"I have no idea what's going on here, and I don't like that," his father began.

"Dad-"

"Let me finish. After this is all over, you and I are going to sit down and have a very long conversation. But for now, as the four of you are the only ones that know what's going on..." he paused for several seconds, and Desmond could tell that whatever he was about to say was not coming easily. "For now," his father said again, "And until the rest of us have enough details to let us do more than get in the way, you're the ones with the information. So I'm going to trust you with this one."

"Really?" Desmond asked, not quite able to hide his surprise. Whatever he had expected his father to say, it was not this. "Thank you."

His father waved a dismissive hand. "Just be sure to bring him back," he said. "Whatever you may think, I would like to see Connor survive this."

Desmond nodded. "So would I." He hesitated, then added, "Thanks."

**-/-**

**I hate writing family. It's almost as bad as romance.**


	10. Chapter 10: Haytham

There was a safehouse fifteen minutes out from Abstergo headquarters. Haytham had stayed there during the week he spent planning his recon mission, and it was where he brought Connor after everything went horribly wrong.

He didn't feel anything. After he had deposited the unconscious Connor in the house's (or to be more correct, apartment's) single bed, Haytham had gone out to the only other room, where he gazed absently out of the grimy window and examined himself for reactions.

However, apart from a small amount of anger, he felt remarkably calm. He'd had far too much practice at pushing his reactions aside until they could no longer put himself or his goals at risk. For some reason, however, he couldn't block out the nagging anger, which told him that when he sat down and had the time to actually feel, he would be extremely upset. So- worth considering exactly where the emotion had come from.

Not that it was difficult for him to figure out. Simmons had told him she knew nothing of templars and assassins. And yet here he was, halfway around the world, unable to explain away the coincidence of being sent to gather information on a company that just happened to be holding his son captive.

And he still didn't know why he'd even chosen to rescue the boy.

On the short trip between Abstergo and the safehouse, Connor had woken briefly. Haytham found "himself mentally returning to this moment over and over again. It would have been disturbing to witness anyone lose their mind the way Connor aparently had- to see them babbling in some strange tongue, unable to recognize where they were or the people around them.

Haytham ground his teeth and strode away from the window. What he needed was answers, and he could think of only one place he might hope to get them. Of course, that meant pulling out the phone he had been provided with and figuring out how to use the blasted thing.

-/-

It took nearly ten full minutes to find the phone and dial Simmons, and she didn't even pick up the first time he called. He tried twice more, and finally she answered. Her voice, when it came over the tiny speaker, sounded tired and muddled. "Whoever you are, you better have a good reason for calling me at 2:00 in the morning."

Haytham glanced at the time on his phone- barely 7:00 pm. "Time difference," he said. "I think we need to talk."

"Kenway?" She suddenly sounded a bit more awake. "Something wrong? Or did you find something?"

"I need to know why you sent me out here."

"I told you everything I know."

"You told me nothing."

"Which is all I know." Simmons's tone had turned reasonable; it annoyed Haytham to no end. "I'm middle management at best, Kenway. All I know is that someone higher up than me has intel that they think makes Abstergo worth checking out. You seemed like the guy to do it. I sent you."

"Who decided they needed to be looked at?" Haytham pressed.

"Is it really that important?"

"Yes."

The line was silent for several long moments- so long, in fact, that Haytham started to wonder if he'd accidentally ended the call. Finally, she sighed, and said, "Alright look. I think the guy we got the information from is still in Italy. He was last I heard, anyway, but he tends to go out of communication a lot. Doesn't really think much of the Initiative, from what I can tell. I'll send him your way if I can get hold of him. Is that enough?"

"Fine," said Haytham, and put down the phone as Simmons hung up.

-/-

With no idea when (or, to be honest, if) the unknown Initiative contact would arrive, Haytham set himself to pacing the small apartment, occasionally checking in on the still asleep Connor. Now that the immediate danger to life and limb were behind him, he could feel an unwelcome slew of emotions beginning to creep up on him.

Foremost among them was worry. And this surprised him. When he'd first met Connor, more than two centuries ago, technically, he'd thought him unemotional. Detached. Frustratingly single minded, unconcerned with anything that did not directly affect his current goal, whatever it might be.

There had been times Haytham had wished he could have been around as the boy was growing up, if only so he could give him the good hard smack he occasionally deserved.

But now, somehow, that had all changed. As much as Haytham despised the feelings, even as he recognized them for their irrationality, still he could not stop them. Every time he looked in at Connor, or remembered the sight of him strapped into a table designed to do who knew what, all he could think was that Connor was his son, and that he did not deserve whatever had been done to him.

The sudden bout of protectiveness disgusted him, but he found himself unable to push it away. With a growl of frustration, he sped up his pacing.

The distraction did not work as well as he had hoped it would have.

-/-

Thre hours later, Haytham looked up to see Connor standing in the doorway. He looked exhausted, and leaned against the doorframe for support, but he at least seemed to recognize his situation- there was none of the strange, mad confusion in his eyes that Haytham had seen the last time Connor woke.

He broke the silence first. "Connor."

"Father."

Neither of them spoke again for a while. Then, realizing Connor probably hadn't eaten for a while, Haytham asked, "Do you need any food?"

"Do you have any?"

"Ah." There had not been much food in the safehouse to begin with, and he had eaten most of it within the first few days. Since then, he had been going out when he felt hungry. "No," he admitted.

"Then I can wait," said Connor.

The thick silence fell upon the room again as they both focused their attentions on avoiding one another's eyes.

Then, there came a knock on the door.

**-/-**

**And... another story without much action. The next one has rooftop chases though! Well, a singular rooftop chase, anyway. And more time travel. :) I promise, it's already written and everything. I just need to unlazy and type it up, which is not going to happen today because it's my day off work and I have plans. :))))**


	11. Chapter 11: Ezio

The search for Connor was not going well. Mostly, they wandered our in ever expanding circles, searching for something that would give them a clue, or any sort of indication which way Haytham had taken Connor. As the sun began to dip below the horizon, Ezio realized the frustration he had felt a few hours ago was fading into hopelessness. They would find him- eventually. But if they didn't find him before Haytham left the area, their task would be made that much more difficult.

They turned their thousandth corner onto their thousandth new street, and Ezio glanced around, first in normal sight, then with eagle vision. As usual, he saw nothing but a sea of gray, apart from Desmond in blue beside him. Then, for just a second, right as he was about to switch back to normal vision, he saw another glimmer of blue, off in the distance. It was at the far end of a crowded street, but still unmistakeable.

He stopped dead and jabbed Desmond on the shoulder. "Do you see that?" he asked.

"No." Desmond squinted down at the end of the street. "Wait, who is that? Is it Connor?"

"I don't think so." He would have expected to see Connor in gold, not blue. "But I think it's someone worth talking to."

They took off down the street. The figure in blue had vanished, around a corner or into the crowd, but Ezio refused to believe they had lost him- they had searched too long already. And then he spotted him. The blue stranger had climbed to the rooftops. Free of the crowds on the street below, he quickly left Ezio and Desmond behind. It also made him easy to find, for anyone that bothered to glance upward.

"We need to get up there," Desmond said as the two of them struggled against the tide of people on the street, most of whom seemed to be moving in the opposite direction as the two of them.

"Right." Ezio dodged an oncoming child and her mother, then ducked into a narrow space between two buildings where he could reach the rooftops more or less undetected- it was a little more difficult to freerun on twenty first century buildings than is had been five hundred years ago, but Ezio was very good at what he did, and in no time had managed to get into a stride. He glanced back a couple rooftops on, only to see that Desmond had been caught by a sudden fluxation of the crowd, and had fallen farther behind. And still the blue stranger grew farther away. Without hesitation, Desmond took off after him; Desmond would catch up eventually.

The chase was one of the most difficult of Ezio's life, and he had been in his fair share of pursuits (both as the chaser and the chasee). More than once, he thought his quarry lost, but always just managed to catch sight of him again. Then, finally, the man made a mistake. They were in a quieter, more residential section of the city, where the buildings were more spaced out. And that was the problem. Ezio had gradually drawn closer to the man, until they were no more than a rooftop or two away from each other at any one point. But Ezio could get no closer until the man, clearly concerned by Ezio, or at least distracted, came to an isolated rooftop, too far from its neighbors to reach safely, too tall to jump to the ground. The only way out was to go back, and by the time the man realized, Ezio had caught up and slammed into him from behind.

They fell together, crashing to the tiled rooftop. The man fought back, but Ezio was desperate now. Either this stranger knew what had happened to Connor, in which case Ezio needed to know as well, or he didn't know, and Ezio and Desmond had wasted the last quarter hour on a wild goose chase.

The man fought fiercely (especially for someone- as Ezio could see now that he was closer- for someone that had only one arm). But eventually, Ezio managed to get the upper hand, pinning the stranger to the rooftops. "Who are you?" he demanded.

The man didn't answer, but a few moments later Desmond caught up. Ezio glanced over from the struggle to say "Took you long-" but then he stopped, because the expression on Desmond's face was one he had not expected. Sort of nervous and edgy, similar to the way he looked when he was Bleeding.

"Who is he?" Desmond asked, carefully addressing Ezio instead of the stranger.

"That's what I'm trying to find out," said Ezio. "But he's not saying much." He turned back to the stranger, who had stopped struggling and was now staring at Desmond. He said something in a language Ezio vaguely recognized- it was Altair's first language- and Desmond responded. He heard Altair's name get thrown into the mix somewhere, and then they proceeded to have a lengthy conversation while Ezio awkwardly sat on the stranger. Eventually, he decided to just interrupt. "Is he going to run away again, or can I get off him now?"

"Oh, yea," said Desmond. "We're good."

Ezio stood up cautiously, still not quite convinced the stranger wasn't going to bolt as soon as he was able. Instead, he simply stood up and rubbed his hand absentmindedly on the newly formed bruise on his shoulder where Ezio had dug his elbow in. Ezio glanced over at Desmond. "Okay," he said. "So he's not going to run, who is he and what's he doing here."

"It's a long story," said Desomnd.

"Tell it anyway," said Ezio. He'd never liked being left out of the loop.

"His name's Malik Al-Sayf," said Desmond, speaking quickly, apparently to get the story out as fast as possible. "He's a... friend of Altair's."

"A complicated 'friend'?" Ezio guessed.

"It's Altair," said Desmond. "I'm not sure he knows how to have normal friends. Did he ever tell you how he met his wife?"

"Is that why he was giving you a look?" asked Ezio. It still freaked him out a little, how similar Desmond and Altair looked.

"Yea," said Desmond. "But anyway-"

"What's he doing here?" asked Ezio. "I'm assuming he's not from this century, if he's friends with Altair."

"Time travel," said Desmond, in a 'well duh' voice.

"I meant 'here' here," said Ezio. "Not 'now' here. What's he doing on a rooftop in Italy?"

"Another long story."

"Short version?"

"He's apparently been here three years; found a few other time travelers, the were the ones that started up the Initiative, Malik didn't want to join but occasionally they convince him to do odd jobs for them. After Abstergo blew the apple he managed to trace it back to them, and suggested the Initiative send someone to look into it. That's why he was in the area."

"I did somehow manage to miss the fact that Abstergo are also templars," Malik butted in wryly and in English. He made a disgusted noise.

Ezio stared at him. "You speak English?"

He raised an eyebrow at Ezio and said (still in English), "No."

"Ha ha," said Ezio. "But if you don't know where Connor is, we're even worse off than before." He kicked at a piece of rubble on the rooftop.

"Where who is?" Malik asked.

"Connor Kenway," said Desmond. "He's an assassin, but he was taken by templars, then taken again, this time by his father who is also a templar, but probably not working with them right now."

"So his father's name would also be Kenway?" Malik asked.

"Yea," said Desmond. "Haytham Kenway. Why?"

But Malik only nodded before saying, "I think I can take you to him."

**-/-**

**Good news and bad news! Good news is that yesterday I got into work and my manager was like 'nope we don't actually need you today', so I went home and realized I had got myself all mentally ready to be productive, and then since I didn't have to work I ended up being productive on this story. So I actually finished it yesterday. Yay! Bad news is that now I have twenty one pages of handwritten story to type up, and I'm lazy. -_- So either expect me to force myself to all finish it like in the next two days, or not get the last chapter for a month and a half. Could go either way.**


	12. Chapter 12: Connor and Altair

Connor withdrew into the bedroom as his father moved to answer the door. In his current state, he did not expect to be much use in a fight. Little as he liked the idea, he would have to rely on his father. The door opened, and after a short silence, Haytham said flatly, "Are you from the Initiative?"

"Yes. Can I come in?" By the sound of it, whoever was at the door had not waited for Haytham to give permission, but pushed his way inside anyway. "They told me you had questions about Abstergo."

"I do."

"So ask." The voice was accented, but Connor knew he recognized it. Or at least, he thought that he knew it. Half his brain seemed to be insisting that the owner of the voice should be as familiar to him as a brother, while the other half was convinced they had never met in his life. He gave a little moan of pain and closed his eyes against the mounting pain behind his eyes.

"I want to know what made Abstergo worth investigating," said Haytham.

"They were the ones that broke time in the first place," said the voice, and suddenly Connor recognized it. Of course- he had known Malik since they were children, and-

No. Those were Altair's memories, Bleeding through. He had heard Malik's voice in the animus. Nowhere else. But why was he here? In twenty first century Italy? On the other side of the wall, the conversation continued.

"Why would they do that?" Haytham asked.

"If anyone should know, it's you."

"Why would I?" Haytham sounded annoyed, which meant he was probably angry. "I'm as much a victim as anyone."

"You're a templar, aren't you?" said Malik. "Well, so are they."

"Wait, what-"

There was a sudden noise from the hall outside the apartment, followed by two pairs of footsteps and another voice. "Woah woah woah! Let's try and avoid a fight, maybe?" It was Ezio.

"You really think he was unaware of their plans?" Malik asked.

"He did die a couple of centuries before the templars started planning this," said a more reasonable voice- Desmond's.

"What are you two even doing here?" Haytahm demanded.

"They came with me," said Malik. "Now listen." Connor heard the familiar click of a hidden blade being put away, and wondered who had drawn. "The templars- Abstergo- were the ones behind time breaking. I had no idea they were the same people, or I would have gone to look into it myself instead of trusting those morons at the Initiative."

"Why did Abstergo even 'break time' in the first place?" Haytham sounded lost.

"They're trying to change the past by sending their own people to mess with it," said Desmond.

"So did you know about any of this or not?" Ezio asked.

"No," said Haytham. "Not that it's any of your business."

"Great," said Desmond. "Now that we have that out of the way, where's Connor? We know you took him from Abstergo."

Despite the still slowly building pain in his head, Connor realized it was time he stop hiding in the bedroom. He passed through the half open door silently, and stood leaning against a wall of the outer room as he surveyed the others and waited for someone to notice him.

Haytham stood closest to where he was, arms folded, arms glaring at the three assassins. Of those three, Ezio looked the most calm- then again, Connor had noticed Ezio tended to be the most at ease in stressful situations. He just had too much excess energy, and under normal circumstances reminded Connor of a hyperactive monkey. To one side of him stood Desmond, and on the other, Malik. Connor tried not to look at him.

Desmond was the first to notice him. "Are you alright?" he asked. The others, distracted from their argument, turned toward him as well.

"Fine," said Connor, but it was a lie and he knew that Desmond could tell. He took a deep breath and changed the subject. "I know why the templars in the past have not been able to change the present. Yet."

"What?" asked Malik.

Still not looking at him, Connor said, "They wanted to change the past to rule the present. They wanted the apple to take them everywhere. Everywhen. But it did not, and they all ended up in one place and time. They still have their plans, but they have not done anything yet. I saw them in the apple when I was in the animus, and I think if we can get to them, we can stop them before they ruin everything. Again."

"Where are they?" Ezio asked.

Connor frowned. "That would be the part you are not going to like."

-/-

"Hey, you guys still around?"

Altair jumped slightly (he had forgotten he was still wearing his earpiece), then glanced over at Lucy to make sure she had not noticed. She was pointedly looking in the other direction, so Altair sighed and answered. "Yes, Ezio. What is it?"

Ezio took a deep breath, then launched into an explanation. "So me and Desmond found this guy and we chased him around a bunch of rooftops for like twenty minutes and it turns out his name's Malik- Desmond says you know him?- and now we're all hanging out at Connor's dad's place and Connor's sort of delusional but acting like he's not because he's Connor and he's stubborn, so you should probably get over here before he Bleeds out or something, oh, and when Connor was in the animus, because time is so messed up right now, the apple showed Connor some weird shit and it turns out the templars that went back in time last winter when the apple blew up all ended up in 1476 so Connor's dad, who is working with the Initiative now I guess- oh, and so is Malik- called this lady he knows, and they argued for a while, and then she argued with Malik, and Malik won so now we're going to use some experimental time travel technology from the Initiative to get to 1476 and stop the templars, or possibly die trying, so it would be great if you guys hurried up and got here." He rattled off some directions and disconnected.

Altair, slightly confused, turned to Lucy. "Did you hear him breathe at all during that?"

She frowned. "Don't think so. But I mean-" she bit her lip, then continued. "If I'm remembering right, 1476 was the year his father and brothers were killed."

"So this is Ezio completely losing it," said Altair.

"Pretty much."

"And Connor is going crazy and Malik is in a small room with a templar and-" he interrupted himself. "We should get moving."

"Yea."

**-/-**

**More time travel coming up. :D**


	13. Chapter 13: Ezio

It was a strange group that gathered in Haytham's apartment later that day. Connor, Altair, and Malik (the latter two bickering in a way Ezio would have found hilarious under normal circumstances) sat on the room's single couch. Connor still looked bad, but Ezio thought he had drifted out of 'crazy' and into 'hasn't slept in a week', which was progress. Kind of. Behind them, Desmond and Lucy leaned against the back of the couch, talking quietly, while on the other side of the room, Haytham made some final arrangements with his Initiative contact.

After a while, Ezio sat down at the edge of the couch next to Connor, perching precariously on the armrest. "Hey Connor?"

"Hmm?" he turned his tired eyes on Ezio.

"When did you last sleep?"

"Is that what you came over here to ask?"

"Well, no, but-" he checked himself. Connor was clearly in a Mood. "Whatever. I wanted to know if you saw what the templars are planning to do in 1476."

"No," said Connor. "But I can guess."

"Yea?"

"They wanted to change history so they come out on top," said Connor. "That was the plan. The only way to do that is to get rid of assassins. We are the ones that put them down, so we are the ones they have to get rid of. And you were probably the most influential assassin of the period." The last sentence came out grudgingly.

"Not in 1476. I had no clue who the assassins even were."

"So they get rid of you before you can fight back," said Connor. "Even better. They might even be planning to do it during the attack on the rest of your family. Make it look like one event."

"Great," said Ezio. "So no chance I'm not going to see them."

"Who, your family?" Connor asked.

"Yea."

"Why would you not want to?"

"Because." Ezio hesitated. He hated talking about feelings. "They're just going to die again. And what am I supposed to say? Sorry I can't save you, that's how history goes?"

"It would be worth it," said Connor. "In that universe the apple sent me to, where Washinton was King, I got to see my mother again. Not for long, but..." he trailed off. Connor wasn't much better with feelings than Ezio was. Probably worse.

"But it was worth it?" Ezio guessed.

"It would have been worth it for five minutes," said Connor. "And they do not have to die again."

"If I save them, I'm changing history," said Ezio. Not that he hadn't thought about it. "And that's apparently the templars' job."

"Because they are disrupting the normal flow of time in a huge way," said Altair.

"Were you listening?" Ezio demanded.

"Yes."

Ezio scowled at him.

"They uprooted thousands of people, ruining lives, disrupting families, almost shattering time. Your family- no matter how important they may be to you- are still just one small group in the enormous number of people that have existed before and after. And anyone in your position would try."

"But-"

"Now get off that thing before you fall," Altair added.

"I'm not going to fall," Ezio sulked.

"We're ready," Haytham announced, surprising Ezio, who had to grab hold of the couch to steady himself as he wobbled on the armrest, which apparently was not made for sitting on. He avoided looking at Altair. "They can trigger it remotely."

"Without triggering an explosion?" Altair asked.

"Of course," said Haytham, scowling at him.

"What do we need to do?" asked Lucy.

"Just wait," said Haytham. "They're doing it all."

"Are you coming with us?" Altair asked. "Because we do not have enough people to keep you under guard."

"And I need a guard, do I?"

"Templar," said Desmond. Lucy frowned at him, but Desmond didn't notice.

"I have other issues to concern myself with."

Ezio glanced at Connor; he doubted it had escaped anyone's attention that Haytham had seemed genuinely concerned for his son's well being. From what Connor and Desmond had said of the older Kenway, it was definitely weird.

"Fine," said Altair, and the next moment it didn't matter anyway, because the decision was taken out of their hands. Between one breath and the next, much more smoothly and seamlessly than he remembered his first bout of time travel to have been, he found himself suddenly returned to his own century.

He took a deep breath and looked around, eyes wide. He was within the courtyard of his family's home, just outside his father's study door. The building looked lived in, cared for, and in better condition than Ezio had seen it in decades. Exactly the same as it had looked in the time before his family had been broken forever. Funny- he had been seventeen then, and although he looked the same age now, he suddenly felt much older.

"Ezio?" he jumped- he'd thought he was alone (Malik had mentioned that the time travel tech might separate them geographically), but there was Desmond, looking extremely out of place in his jeans and T-shirt. Ezio wondered if he looked as bad. Probably.

"I'm fine," Ezio lied.

"Yea, I can tell," said Desmond. "Do you-"

The door to his father's study opened, and Ezio took a step back, because there he was- Giovanni Auditore, exactly the way he had been preserved in Ezio's memories, right down to the clothes. They were the same ones he had worn the last time Ezio had seen his father, the day before his execution. With a jolt, Ezio realized. That day was today.

"Did you finish your errands?"

"What?"

He felt completely disoriented; luckily, Desmond seemed a little more on the ball. Then again, he'd lived through these memories only a year or so ago, in the animus. For him, these were details of days already decades old. "He was giving me directions," Desmond said. "Thanks," he added, turning to Ezio.

"Right," Ezio said cluelessly, then, to his father, "I'll just- go get started. Yea." And then he fled, following Desmond out before Giovanni thought to ask what he was wearing. Safely out of sight, Desmond sighed.

"You can talk a girl out of her skirt in thirty seconds flat but you can't say two sentences to your own father? I think even Connor's said more to Haytham, and he's _Bleeding_."

He was obviously trying to get a laugh out of Ezio, and in spite of himself, Ezio found that it had worked. "So I froze," he admitted. "What do we do now?"

"Find clothes that don't make us look like we came from outer space, then go rescue the others because I'm pretty sure we're the only ones that speak Italian."

-/-

They managed to gather everyone in just under an hour without drawing too much attention (new clothes helped with that), or running into they younger-and-actually-supposed-to-be-in-1476 Ezio (which had been making him really nervous).

"We're kind of cutting it close if we want to get to your family before they're arrested," Lucy said.

Altair shook his head. "At this point it would make more sense if we just interrupt them in the middle of the arrest," he said. "We probably would only get half the explanation out before being interrupted."

"They might find it hard to believe anyway," Haytham said dryly.

"Time travel's not exactly normal around here," Desmond agreed. "I asked a couple people when we were tracking each other down. There have been a few people, but nowhere near as bad as '04. Not even as bad as whatever year you came out of."

"And I haven't heard of there being two of anyone, in any year," said Lucy with a glance at Ezio.

"You never make things simple," Altair sighed.

"Hey!" Ezio protested. "It's not like it's my fault."

"Two of you is sort of the stuff of nightmares," Desmond added. Ezio whacked him on the back of the head.

"Can we just go do something now?" he asked. "Even if we're just waiting."

"Well-"

"Better early than late," said Ezio. "Please?"

-/-

They agreed in the end, and off the went, approaching the Auditorie residence from three different directions. Ezio was paired with Lucy, but thirty seconds away from home, he knew something was wrong, and without a moment's hesitation he sped up, leaving her behind. He could hear the sound of gunshots up ahead, and he knew there was only one place it could be coming from.

Lucy sped up to match his pace. "What's wrong?" she demanded.

"Abstergo's making their move," he said.

"What are you going to do?"

"I don't know." Ezio shook his head. "Just hold the others back until I give the signal, okay?" He knew Lucy, Desmond, and Altair still had their headphones in (he'd accidentally left his behind in Haytham's apartment), and that they were more like walkie talkies than cell phones, which meant they would still work.

"What's the signal?" Lucy asked.

"You're not going to try to talk me out of it?"

"Would it work?" she asked.

"No."

"Then no. What's the signal?"

"Not sure," he admitted. "But probably I'll be killing some templars. So watch for that."

-/-

The fight below was going badly, Ezio noticed as he dashed across the rooftops toward it. Of course it was. Giovanni was putting up a fight, but the templars had modern guns, and a lot of them. Luckily, they were depending too heavily on them, and were paying the price- two were down already. That still left six.

No- seven. On the other side of the courtyard, in shadows so dark he'd missed her at first glance, a woman with a crazy light in her eyes and a fucking enormous gun stood guard over the other Auditores- his mother, brothers, sister, and himself. Ezio tried to ignore how weird that was. He wondered why she hadn't just shot them yet. Then again, she did look completely absorbed in watching the fight. He shrugged. Not like he was going to complain.

He scrambled round the side of the room until he stood over her, and jumped, hidden blades extending as he fell. The woman dropped dead before she had time to scream, and Ezio moved on, into the main fight (six left). He took out two more with a single movement, extending his arms in opposite directions and introducing two templars to his hidden blades. Four.

"E-Ezio?" his father looked shocked to see him, and more than a little winded. "What are you-"

"I'd love to explain, dad-" the remaining templars were backing up as quickly as possible to get out of blade range, while still firing as quickly as they could. "But this is probably not the best moment, and _that was the signal, Lucy!_" He shouted the last part in English, and a moment later the area was filled with assassins (plus Haytham), the remaining four templars no more than bodies on the ground. Ezio sighed in relief and bent down to the pair of templars that still lay at his feet. _"Requiecat in pace," _he said quietly.

"Sorry," Lucy apologized. "Haytham spotted they had backup and we had to take care of them first. Also you suck at picking signals."

"Haytham noticed?"

"He actually does seem to want to be on our side," said Lucy. "Or at least Connor's."

"How's he doing?" Ezio asked. "Connor?"

"Not drooling yet," Connor called from the other side of the yard.

"Can someone please explain what's going on?" Ezio glanced at Desmond, suddenly panicked, as his father interrupted.

"You do it," he hissed.

"He's your dad," said Desmond. By now, they were the center of attention, which made Ezio feel really uncomfortable.

"I'm shitting myself," said Ezio. Malike gave a surprised snort of laughter, which he quickly tried to hide behind a cough when Altair elbowed him.

"Fine," said Desmond. Then, in Italian, he said to Giovanni, "Sorry, sir- your son is apparently a pants wetting coward and doesn't want to tel you he's an eighty year old time traveler."

Ezio groaned. "Asshole."

"What did he say?" Connor asked.

"Not telling."

"Also," Desmond continued, more serious now, "These aren't the last templars that will be coming here today, so maybe we can get moving for the rest of this conversation?"

-/-

They were well on their way to Monteriggioni when Desmond finished explaining events. Much as he hated Desmond's opener, he had to admit he still didn't think he could have done it himself. He didn't want to feel Giovanni's eyes on him as he told him everything he'd done in his lifetime. He'd made his share of mistakes. More than.

He was riding alone at the back of the group (he'd told the others he was watching for attacks from behind, but really he was trying to avoid his younger self, who looked like he was about ready to burst with questions). Connor dropped back to join him. "How are you?"

"How do you think?" Ezio snorted. "Never mind. I'm fine."

"Liar."

"Then why did you ask?" he sighed. "Alright, I feel like shit. My dad's going to be really disappointed with what I've done."

"How do you know?" Connor asked.

"He wanted me to be a banker," said Ezio. "I went in a pretty different direction."

"But he is your father," said Connor, and glanced ahead to where Haytham was riding. "Sometimes they can surprise you."

"Yea?" Ezio asked. Feeling unusually grumpy, he added, "He know you killed him yet?"

"Apparently Altair told him when we were in the twenty first century," said Connor. "Trying to scare him off. I think it just made him more determined to stay."

"Well now we know where you get your suicidal stubbornness from," said Ezio. Then, "Thanks."

"For what?"

"Trying to cheer me up even though we've had our..." he made a complex hand gesture that encompassed the arguments, the stupid comments, all the times he'd bothered Connor even when it was obvious he'd rather be left alone. Which was most of the time. "You know."

"You did come with the others to get me from Abstergo," said Connor. "Besides. I was not trying to cheer you up."

"Then what were you doing?"

"Desmond is done talking with your father. He wants to talk to you. This was me distracting you until he gets here."

Ezio looked up and there was Giovanni, not five feet away. "Okay," he said, unenthusiastically. "Great."

-/-

"Hey dad."

Giovanni didn't return the greeting. To Ezio's horror, he seemed to have been crying. Not openly weeping, just a few tears, but it was more than he had ever seen before. "Was Desmond's story true?" he asked.

"I wasn't exactly listening," Ezio said cautiously. "But I don't think he would have lied about something this important."

A moment of silence, then Giovanni said, "I'm sorry."

"What?" Ezio had not expected that at all. "Why?"

"I never wanted you to be a part of this life," said Giovanni. "I wanted to protect you."

Ezio shook his head. "I was born to be an assassin," he said. "It's what I'm good at. It's all I've know, for most of my life. I'm just sorry-" And now he felt the beginnings of tears in his own eyes. "I'm sorry it took so long to come back for you."

"You have nothing to apologize for," said Giovanni.

"Well, neither do you."

They said nothing more for a long time, but Ezio felt as though a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. For the first time in a long time, he felt able to smile.

**-/-**

**So... I've been wanting to write this bit ever since it popped into my head back when Haytham first showed up. :) It's one of two scenes I knew I wanted to write going in; the other scene is in the next chapter, and I've actualy wanted to write it since December but couldn't come up with a good way to do it until this fic. So yay. Okay, done talking.**


	14. Chapter 14: Desmond

That night, after they made camp, the seven time travelers gathered in a circle a little ways away from the rest of the group. "So do we stay here- er, now, I mean?" Lucy asked.

"We have to," said Altair. He sounded tired. "We have no way to be sure that all the Abstergo agents are taken care of."

"I'm staying, anyway," said Ezio. Desmond looked at him, surprised. "I talked to my dad, earlier, and- well, it won't be the family I remember. But it will be family." He seemed to be having a hard time looking anyone in the eye, but Desmond could see, even in the near pitch blackness of the night, that he was smiling.

"But wait," said Lucy. "Do we even have a choice where we end up?"

"The Initiative's had their time travel device ready to go for a while now," said Malik. "They've just been waiting for someone stupid enough to volunteer to try it. Now that they know it works, they can start taking people back to their native times. I don't think it matters where or when any of us want to go."

"So this is it?" Desmond was surprised by how sad he felt. "We're splitting up?"

"I know I am ready to go home," said Altair. Malik nodded.

"We were talking, earlier," said Connor. He sounded hesitant as he nodded at Haytham. "We might go back together. Maybe a little farther back, actually. I would like to meet my grandfather and- well." He shrugged.

Desmond nodded, and turned to Lucy. "And you?" he tried to smile, and didn't quite manage it. "Are you leaving me too?"

"There's still Juno to worry about," she said. "I'd like to help stop her. As long as you promise not to stab me again."

This time he did smile. "No promises."

"Maybe a different sort of 'hidden blade'?" Ezio suggested, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.

"Shut up," Desmond muttered.

"I didn't hear a no."

Lucy punched him.

"So this is goodbye," said Desmond. "More or less."

"Not quite," said Altair. "If you want to stop Juno, there is something we need to take care of first." He looked Desmond in the eye and said, "We need to make sure you survive."

-/-

"They have it calibrated," Malik announced. They were back in 2004, in Haytham's Initiative apartment. "New York State, December 20, 2012. Just before midnight. He glanced at Desmond. "You'll probably show up first, since you're the only one actually alive at that point in history. But we'll follow."

"Some of us will even help," said Ezio.

"He can't help his DNA," Altair said reproachfully.

"Can we just do this?" Desmond asked, a little tetchily. Even if he hadn't technically died the last time he saw Juno, the thought of facing her again still had him nervous.

"Yea," said Malik. "We just need to wait for them to-"

His voice cut out abruptly, and Desmond stumbled backwards, because the floor of the grand temple was uneven, and pitched more steeply than the apartment in Italy had been.

He was back. He was 25 again. The others were gone, as though they had never been. For just a fraction of a second, he wondered if he had imagined the entirety of the last year, it seemed suddenly so impossible. But then he dismissed the thought. They would come.

They had to.

"Shit, Desmond! Are you okay?" That was Rebecca. He'd almost fallen into her."

"Yea." That was a lie, of course. "Where were we?" The Initiative's time travel was precise, up to a point, but he had no idea when exactly he'd come back to. Hopefully he wouldn't have to sit through all the exposition a second time.

"Are you taking Juno's side or Minerva's?" his father asked.

"We're at that part already?" He'd expected to show up a little earlier, give the others a chance to catch up. Shit. He'd have to improvise, play for time. "Well, to be honest," he said slowly, "I'm not too hot on either choice." Delay. It was his only chance now. If he was forced to make a chance before the others came, he was dead. Literally. "Killing millions of people or giving Juno free reign to do whatever she wants with humanity? Pass."

"You think you have another choice?" Juno sounded almost amused.

"Sort of," said Desmond. "See, I'm not going to be responsible for the death of most of humanity. But the only way I'm taking your option is if I know I'll be around to stop you after." He locked gazes with her, and was rewarded by a flash of uncertainty there.

"You'll be dead," she told him.

He ignored her. "This thing-" he gestured at the pedestal that had been designed to free Juno- and kill him. "It feeds off Precursor DNA. Like a battery. I don't have enough to power it and survive, but if there were more of us with some of that DNA, I might just make it. And then I would be able to come for you, Juno." He smiled and shrugged. "At least, that's Altair's theory. And he's pretty good with this kind of stuff."

"Desmond," Shaun started. "Altair isn't-"

"I'm not crazy," Desmond assured him. Then he realized that was exactly what a crazy person would probably say. "Or Bleeding."

"But you are running out of time," said Juno. "In sixty seconds, you'll be late to save anyone."

He hadn't allowed himself to think about what he would do if the others didn't come. But really, there wasn't any choice. He'd told Juno the truth. He wouldn't allow humanity to die out needlessly. Not just for Juno- she wasn't worth the lives of millions of humans. She wasn't worth the life of a single human.

And then there was a crackle in the air, and somebody stepped through time to join them in the already crowded room. Malik. Desmond let out a sigh. "You are literally useless to me right now, you know that?" It wasn't the nicest way to say hello, but he could feel the beginnings of panic. He was going to die anyway.

"What's going on?" Rebecca demanded.

Malik ignored her. "They're coming," he told Desmond. "Thirty seconds."

"No," said Desmond. "That's too late. Tell Lucy-" but the words stuck in his throat. "Never mind." He turned to stare at the pedestal, feeling his final precious seconds tick away. He shook his head. "Fuck it," he said, and slammed his head down onto the shimmering surface.

For a single, endless moment, he felt unendurable pain roar through every nerve in his body, knew his life was slipping away, and no matter how hard he might fight, this was one battle he could not win. In other words, agony.

Then he felt the press of bodies close around him, and saw his ancestors, the way he had only ever seen them in the animus, at the height of their power- Altair, stern face nearly completely hidden by his hood; Ezio, flashing Desmond a reassuring smile; Connor, determined as ever to give all that he could for what was right; even Haytham, tall and proud, standing as an equal among them. And, through the press of bodies, he could see Malik and Lucy on the other side of the circle, powerless to help but still _there_.

The pain lessened, but Desmond could tell that it wouldn't be enough. The others couldn't quite give what was needed, they were just a little too late, and now they were all going to die.

They were just _that much _short.

And that was when William thrust his hand into the mass, slapping his hand down next to Desmond's. His father- through whom he had inherited most of his Prescursor DNA.

It was enough. Just barely, it was enough. Whatever was happening finished happening, and Desmond found himself ready to fall, and incredibly grateful to be sandwiched in between family. He knew they wouldn't let him drop. His eyes sought out Juno. She was still there, exactly where she had been, but in some undefinable way, more solid. She looked terrified. Too tired to do anything else, he smiled, and watched as she fled.

-/-

They gathered in the main hall of the temple, more or less in silence. "So anyone else having flashbacks to when the apple blew?" Ezio asked cheerfully. They'd been in another first civilization structure then, but gathered in defeat, not victory.

"Oh yea," Desmond said.

"Does somebody possibly want to explain what's going on?" Shaun asked.

"Not really," said Malik.

"I will." Ezio grinned.

"Somebody else do it," Altair said. "Or we will be here all night."

Ezio shot him a look that was way too innocent to be real.

"You never shut up," Altair told him bluntly.

While they bickered, Desmond glanced over at his father, who was sitting on the floor beside him, looking as tired as he felt. "Thanks for jumping in," he said.

"Of course."

"And I'm sorry."

"For what?"

Desmond hesitated. Everything he had seen and done over the past year or so- did it still count? Had it even happened, or was it confined to some sort of off shoot universe? He didn't know, and didn't care. "For stuff," he said.

"Good enough," said William. And that was all that was said.

-/-

Eventually, after the entire story had come out, Ezio announced that he was leaving. "I'm overdue for a trip home," he told Desmond.

"No kidding," said Desmond. "Good luck."

"It'll be fun." As always, when Ezio smiled it was infectious. "See you around."

"Yea right," said Desmond. "I got the impression this was kind of a one way trip."

"Then you got the wrong impression," said Ezio, and he actually winked. He held out a small grey box with no distinguishing features a part from a red switch in the very center. "This is why the rest of us came through after you did," he explained. "We actually stayed in 2004 a couple days longer."

"Stupid time travel."

"Right? But anyway, we were waiting on these. Customized to take us between your time and home. So don't be surprised if some of us show up from time to time."

"I'll be very surprised," said Desmond. "I've seen how you are with modern tech. That thing won't last a week." But he was smiling, because this was the difference between 'goodbye' and 'see you later'.

"We'll see," said Ezio- and vanished.

Altair and Malik were the next to go. "But you might see us around sometimes," Altair said as they made to go.

"Ezio already told me about it," said Desmond.

"He literally cannot stop talking, can he?" Altair asked, after a moment's silence.

"Nope."

"Ah well." Altair shrugged, and the two of them vanished.

When it was Connor's turn to go, Lucy distracted Haytham while Desmond talked to Connor alone. "You'll be okay?" he asked. "With the Bleeding? And your father?"

Connor nodded. "Seeing Altair again helped with the Bleeding, and I can handle my father. I can handle this."

"I don't doubt it," said Desmond. Connor was by far the most stubborn of his ancestors, when he wanted to be. "But you know, if you ever need to talk..."

Connor nodded. "I know."

And then it was just Desmond and Lucy; his father, Rebecca, and Shaun were elsewhere, packing up supplies, already making plans to head out after Juno, throwing Lucy the occasional suspicious glance. Desmond supposed that was fair. Until a little while ago, they'd still thought of her as working with the templars. "What about you?" Desmond asked her. "Do you have a little box that lets you vanish on me?"

"Nope," said Lucy. "You can't get rid of me that easily."

"The others aren't going to like it," said Desmond. "To them, you're still a templar and a traitor."

"Then I'll have to prove to them I've changed," said Lucy. "I proved it to you, didn't I?"

"Absolutely," said Desmond, without hesitation.

"Good," said Lucy. "Because I'm not going anywhere."

And just for that moment, whatever other challenges might be headed his way, Desmond believed that it would all turn out alright.

**-/-**

**And... end! There goes three months of my life. ;) Hopefully at least one person out there enjoyed it. One person not counting me.**

**...Yea I'm done.**


End file.
